


this is how the world ends (with more of a beep-bop)

by SourCherrie



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Adventure, Friends to Lovers, I'm not joking - Freeform, M/M, Other relationships - Freeform, and some journal-finding, i'm just borrowing a weird setting, no, nurseydex - Freeform, this is a Gravity Falls AU, you don't need to have watched it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-20
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-05 07:05:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14038827
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SourCherrie/pseuds/SourCherrie
Summary: William Poindexter is no stranger to small towns but he has yet to see one quite like Gravity Falls. Here, a baker tries to feed him his own weight in buttermilk pie. Two guys want him to repair their multidimensional portal in exchange for shelter. And a mustachioed reporter holds court in the local diner, campaigning for Gnome Inclusion.Something is fishy and Will isn't talking about the mermaid he's almost, not quite, more than 50% sure he'd seen floating around the lake.And that's before Derek Nurse comes to town, bearing an insufferable New Yorker grin and the possessed best friend story to end all other possessed best friend stories around.Now, if only that girl with woodcutter boots and her plump pet pig could stop giving him knowing looks.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry to say, there is no NurseyDex in this Prologue very much for plot reasons.

Justin’s alarm rings at 5 a.m. sharp like it did every other Saturday in recent memory.

Justin wakes at 4.46, though, and lies in the quiet of the room, still listening for breaths. In the unnatural silence, it occurs to him he’s hearing the wheezing sound of his blood in his veins, trying to outrun his nightmares to the finishing line.

He doesn’t try closing his eyes again. When he does, there’s blinding light behind them, burning brightly from the images still etched at the forefront of Justin’s mind.

It’s a wonder he gets to sleep at night.

The dark, Justin had learned the past couple months, it’s an interesting place. Very luring. It uses a voice so soothing, coddles you with it, cuddles you in it. It tells you things. It lies about hiding places. It strips you and shoves your naked self into a mirror hall.

He’s a train wreck, Justin has found out. He must be, otherwise, he’d manage to look away.

It’s 4.59.

Under his breath, Justin starts counting. It used to numb his thoughts but now they just buzz behind the numbers.

He stops the alarm. Gets out of bed. And then just stands on the edge for a minute, nostalgia rising up his throat like bile. He’s tempted to shove his phone into a drawer. Go back to sleep and pretend everything is fine. Justin thinks of the two empty beds in the attic; lets a shockingly acute wave of longing wash all over him.

He tells his feelings to shove off.

He has pie for breakfast. He has pie for two out of three meals every day, and cake and cookies and Swiss Rolls, since Bitty’s coping mechanism seems to mostly consist of baking his feelings. Justin builds his into walls and hurtles all his thoughts at them. He knows which one of them doesn’t lay awake for days at an end, nervous energy ricocheting everywhere.

He eats standing up on the porch, fixating the trail losing itself in the forest with his gaze. Nothing moves. Dawn struggles to break and Justin gets back inside.

He gets his backpack. He shoves a blanket in it, and energy bars and drinks. Soda. Water. The small, hotel-sized bottle of Jack Daniel’s he’d bought from the All Things store run by the old man who seems to think legislation applies in proportional doses.

He used to do it because he was an optimist. Now he does it because anything else would seem like giving up.

Jack wakes up.

Justin isn’t sure if Jack sleeps. He might just lie awake like Justin himself, obsessing. He might just sleep because he has to. Jack’s good at that. Rationalizing. Compartmentalizing. Recognizing the need for things to be done and then doing them.

Just because.

Back when he used to play, they called Jack a robot. Sometimes, Justin understands why.

They talk in hushed voices as if they’re afraid they'd wake someone up. It’s useless. It’s only them in the Haus.

If anyone else is here, they can’t be seen. If anyone else is here, whispering is not going to stop them from hearing.

This is not their first rodeo. Nor is it the second. Or the third.

Justin leaves the Haus at 5:32, his backpack heavy, his snapback low. There’s enough light to walk now and the morning feels crips and acutely real.

Jack's voice spills in his left ear from the small headphone they’d bought.

“Where are you now?”

Justin dregs his palm down his face, over his lips, rubbing his jaw for a moment. His legs itch to break into a run. Get this over with. His stupid heart insists on hoping.

“You can probably still spot me from the window, dude.”

“Where are you now?” Jack repeats even though Justin knows for a fact he’s fucking right.

Justin swallows hard. “I’m barely at the edge of the forest.”

As much as he wants to, he’s not about to tell Jack to chill. There is barely any space for chilling here.

Justin walks.

He walks the badly paved road into town. He passes the stream-river thing he and Adam saw Girlie in. And the abandoned mill where the ghosts are afraid of people. He passes the Clearing. He passes the Tree.

God. They’d been so fascinated by this place. Even though everything is hurting now, a part of Justin still is.

He passes into town.

There’s a sleepy, early morning quality here. Everything is warmer. All the businesses are closed still, but the idea that there are people nearby, more than one, more than two and a memory nestled in the bed next to his, brings a bit of warmth to Justin, too.

Here it's where it always happens. Where the hope swells in his chest and all the rationality in the world is left behind.

Bitty waits for him at his door and passes him a pack of cherry pastries with a small smile. There are chocolate chip cookies at the bottom of that bag, Justin knows without checking, because he may be shutting down inside day by day, and Jack may be becoming more paranoid with every week that passes but Bitty – Bitty is just really fucking good, down to his fucking core. His concern spills over in the form of comfort.

Justin keeps walking.

He walks uphill. He enters the forest circling the valley yet again. The sun goes up and up and up and Justin does as well and – he can almost see it, the bus stop, well and truly tucked away, you’d never even notice it if you weren’t looking with purpose.

He fishes his phone out of his pocket. It’s 7:43 and he has almost made it.

Hope beats wildly in his chest. _Maybe this time_ , his traitorous mind whispers.

It's 7:44.

Justin blinks.

It’s 5:32 and he’s looking at the darkness of the forest, his back decidedly turned to the Haus.

It’5:32 and Jack swears in his ear.

It’s 5:32 and Justin has let Adam down yet again.


	2. (No) Need for Strangers

As a rule, Will doesn’t do well with buses.

Still, he’s asleep when they cross the border into Oregon; the last thing he remembers before the sudden jerk of a hastily pulled break and the sting of pain in his creaking neck is a long stretch of road running through the middle of an arid Idaho.

It’s the exhaustion that’s finally caught up with him, has gathered in his bones like melted lead, making everything feel heavy. He straightens with difficulty. His tired body, sadistically cramped in the tiny second isle seat of a huge bus for hours at an end, protests the move.

His left cheek prickles unpleasantly from being smashed against the window. Will rubs it with a grimace as heat returns slowly to his skin.

“What’s happening?” he mumbles to his octogenarian, cat-holding seatmate.

Mrs. Coleson, who’s wrinkled and prune-smelling, and who’d gotten on somewhere in Nebraska and has since relegated him with a stutteringly narrated description of every cat she’s owned in her life, smiles gently at him.

“Lou says this is your stop, honey.”

Will looks dubiously at the ginger tomcat curled in her lap. The tomcat looks back with feline disdain.

“It does?”

Mrs. Coleson gives a diplomatic cough that sends orange cat hair everywhere.

“I meant Lou the driver, dear.”

The effect is somewhat ruined by the way she hides her grin behind her hands. Will feels his face grow ridiculously hot.

“Of course,” he manages, trying to pretend he isn’t completely mortified. “The driver.”

He thinks Mrs. Coleson might be the only one aboard who’d managed, in a span of under eight hours, to learn not only the name of every person on a five isles radius, but also their parents’, children’s, and in one uniquely memorable occasion, canine nephews’. It is, he’s willing to admit to himself, a power; an old lady sort of power, even. It reminds Will of his grandmother.

“I think you should go, honey,” Mrs. Coleson whispers, patting his arm softly. “He doesn’t look like the most patient man in the world, does he?”

Will glances towards the front of the bus. Lou the Driver, half-turned in his seat and fixing them with an impatient glare, looks just slightly less inconvenienced by Will than Lou the Non-Communicative Tomcat. Still.

“But –“ Will throws another look out the window to check there’s no skyscraper hiding around a corner. Forest stretches as far as he can see. “That can’t be right. I’m going until the end of the line. Portland.”

He pats his jeans’ pockets for a few seconds before coming upon a more than slightly crumpled bus ticket. He smoothes it as best he can and – Where he’d been fairly certain just a few hours back Portland, Oregon had been typed in bold letters, now the words Gravity Falls look back at him in a chicken-scratch like font.

Will stares, stunned. The ticket doesn’t stare back, just stays there, all papery and crinkled and wrong.

“But –“ he tries again.

Lou the Driver, Not the Most Patient Man in the World, presses his thin lips together. He’s probably aiming for imposing. He misses by a mile and his already potato-shaped face manages to just look constipated.

His voice converts that into sound.

“You want to go to Portland, kid, you pay.”

There are ten dollars Will has to his name. Not enough, definitely, and he’s not sure he’d have paid even if he’d had more. As it turns out, the choice is not a hard one. It’s more of the _Fuck it. It’s not like I had a reason to go to Portland, anyway_ variety. He grabs his bag.

Mrs. Coleman’s cat, jolted yet again by his mistress’s attempt to give Will space, takes a last chance to add a new series of deep gashes on the back of his hand. They still sting as the automatic door closes almost silently behind him.

Outside, where the temperature difference between blasting air-con and blasting summer heat is staggering, Will swings his backpack on. The bus departs. He decides that, if he never meets anyone named Lou ever again, be it of the human or feline variety, it’ll still be too soon.

* * *

 

It takes him a bit to move.

There’s a span of fifteen or so minutes there when – legs spread out for the first time in days, lungs gratefully filling with people-free air –  Will half-seriously considers a species-altering conversion to lizardry

Find a boulder.

Sit on the boulder.

Let yourself feel comfortable in the most blazing of heats.

Hakuna Matata or some shit.

Will’s losing his mind. It’s probably the lack of vegetables.

When he finally hauls himself upright from the – he actually found a boulder, huh? – and looks around, there is no obvious sign pointing the way. There are trees, trees, and trees some more but finally, buried behind tangles of weeds, he finds a crooked arrow, hanging pathetically downwards.

Under more vegetation, Will stumbles upon a matching path.

When the town finally blooms below him, a warm bittersweet feeling unfolds in his chest. Gravity Falls is the kind of three stops, two streets, one lake and a cluster of houses place Will’s used to. It reminds him fiercely of home.

Will’s dizzy from heat and hunger by the time he gets into the shadow of the first buildings and he takes a moment to lean against a wall and search inside his bag for the last of his water. There’s no more than a sip left in the bottle from when he’d refilled it that morning at the ten minutes stop they’d made and it does him more bad than it does good. It just accentuates how his throat feels parched; his mouth, like it’s full of sand.

He’s left with aimlessly wandering around at this point but he’s just taken a few steps towards the end of the street when a bunch of dark-haired kids – the oldest looking around thirteen, the youngest like he’d barely turned six – race around the corner on bikes, nearly knocking him over.

The street sways only a little before Will manages to catch his foot but the dizziness refuses to go away, so he lets himself slide down to the pavement anyway. 

He doesn’t think the colors bursting behind his eyelids are as a good a sign as they’re looking.

“Sir!” a high, shrill voice whispers and a disoriented Will blinks to find himself looking into the big round eyes of the younger kid. It occurs to him they’re so close, they could count each other freckles.

When Will says nothing, he finds himself poked by a plump, yet surprisingly sharp finger.

“Hey, Sir!” the kid says bossily. “You okay?”

Again, the chubby finger borrows seamlessly between Will’s ribs. He yelps, a high-pitched screech thankfully covered by the sound of bicycle stokes. A quick glance confirms the other two kids have returned and the older one does not, Will observes, look very happy. His hand wraps around his brother’s arm, yanking him back.

To Will, his scowl feels oddly familiar.

“What are you doing, Cam? Get away from him.”

Pokey’s face is so earnest, it almost looks hurtful.

“But we knocked him over. Mommy says it’s nice to make sure they’re alright when you knock them over.”

“Well, we didn’t. He tripped.” Brown eyes, identical to Pokey’s, swivel on Will. “You tripped, didn’t you?”

“Slipped.” Will shrugs. “Must’ve lost my footing on that slippery trail of lies you left behind.”

The kid’s cheeks fill with a sparing dust of color and his lips tighten even more. He pulls yet again on Pokey’s arm, dragging him back to his bike.

Will pushes himself back up.

“C’mon, kid. Lay off him. He was just trying to be nice.”

“Don’t mind Anton, Sir.”

Will turns to what must be the middle brother. There is really no other explanation for the matching eyes, matching hair, matching bone structure. Or for the matching plaid shirts they are wearing.

“Dad’s been on him not to let us out of sight ever since my sister started having all these memory problems. He just gets a bit – overzealous.”

Anton makes a hissing cat sort of sound.

“Don’t tell him that, Neil, God. We don’t know him. And stop calling him Sir, he hardly looks older than Sis.”

Neil rolls his eyes. Over Anton's shoulder, Cam still throws Will worried looks. Will does his best to give him an encouraging smile.

“I’m fine, really. It was my fault mostly. Haven’t eaten in a while.”

It’s getting close to the sixteen-hour mark if Will is honest with himself. There’s been nothing else to eat since the energy bars and the lone stale biscuit he’d found in one of the backpack’s lateral pockets. Will knows he’s nearing his breaking point by the way the memory of Mrs. Coleson’s pickle and cheese sandwiches actually makes his stomach leap in excitement.

A part of him, the one definitely reduced to irrationality by hunger, wishes he’d just taken the damn thing when offered. The rest, still valiantly fighting the weak in the knees sensation, remembers all too clearly the half-full can of cat-food lying open in the same bag.

The regret recedes dramatically. Will’s not quite there yet.

“See, told you he was fine.” Anton jumps on his bike, making impatient signs at his brothers. “We can go now.”

Cam scans Will from head to toe and back again one last time. Seemingly satisfied, he waves and, getting back in the saddle, follows his brother.

“C’mon, Neil,” Anton hollers over his shoulder.

Neil rolls his eyes and goes to straddle his bike.

“Sorry for knocking you over,” he tells Will. “If you’re hungry, there’s Annie’s just a bit further down. On the right side, near the Stuff Hut. You can’t miss it.”

He could swear that, at the mention of food, the ten dollars in his pocket start poking at him through the thick material of his jeans.

Maybe Will is not quite there yet but he’s definitely in the neighborhood.

“Just don’t get the omelet.” The kid shakes his head. “She has this thing about putting coffee in it? It’s absolutely vile.”

He paddles away. Left alone, Will follows them with his gaze for a while.

 

* * *

 

 

Annie’s turns out to be old school.

It’s kitschy, with fake leather booths, cherry red and cracked, and with scratched and wobbly tables. What seems like an infinite array of mismatched stools line the bar. There is even a jukebox in the corner that looks suspiciously out of order.

It’s the type of diner you see in movies, where the food is either excellent or terrible and where everything always seems to happen. A conversation. An offer. A change. Will doesn’t need his entire life to turn upside down here. He barely has money that he can afford to lose.

There are only two tables free and Will can feel everyone’s eyes on him as, in turn, he bends in front of both of them, inspecting the walls. Distantly, he wishes this town had a McDonald’s. There, at least, everyone is usually too taken with their McWings and their McFries to ever pay attention to anyone else.

“No offense,” he hears, “but you look very strange doing that.”

When Will looks up, a tall brunette girl smiles down at him, dangling a menu from her hand.

“I’m just looking for an outlet,” he says, getting up from his crouch and throwing his backpack on the leather seat. “My laptop’s dead.”

Her lips press together in disappointment.

“I’m sorry. You can’t charge devices here. Annie’s policy.”

Terrible, Will decides. This place is terrible.

The menu she places in front of him is greasy and all its corners are bent but, to Will’s relief, nothing inside looks particularly expensive.

The girl – her nametag reads Caitlin but that’s been crossed out in red marker and, underneath, someone had scribbled Farmer – juts his order on her pad with quick efficiency.

“Coffee? Refills are free.”

It’s probably too late for that but Will’s always been one of those people who could sleep like a dead after a caffeine injection.  And it’s not like he has a place to sleep, anyway.

He peeks around while he waits. To his relief, nothing on people’s plates looks inedible.

“Do you know of any repair shops around here?” he asks when she places his order in front of him.

It’s scrambled eggs and toast, which is, completely unrelated, the cheapest thing on the menu. It doesn’t matter because the eggs are fluffy and definitely not greasy and Will might just honest to Jesus think the sight of his loaded fork is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“Well, there’s Finklemaier’s near the library but it’s probably closed by now. Do you need to get something fixed?”

Will shrugs and swallows the huge huge amount of hot food in his mouth.

“Not really. I’m looking for a job.”

“Oh. Are you any good?”

“Decent,” Will says. “Had to be.”

She takes a quick look around, then slides on the opposite seat from Will’s. Suddenly, she seems very excited.

“By any chance, do you know anything about ovens?”

“I mean, I fixed one before. Why? Is anything broken in the kitchen?

“No, but this guy I know – He’s the one who makes the pies – “

She flutters a hand at the glass display nearby where a selection of assorted pies looks undeniably mouthwatering.

“So he’s been looking for ages for someone to fix his lucky oven and –“

 

* * *

 

 

Derek waits until everyone currently in the building is sure to loathe him before deciding to try a different door. It’s completely unintentional if, sadly, definitely typical.

The polished gold plaque reads Houssain and he barely has time to touch the dark cherry wood with his knuckles before the door is yanked back, revealing a harassed-looking man whose toddler, secured at the hip, seems awfully determined to yank his beard off. His raised eyebrow, Derek is certain, is the thing nightmares are made of.

The way it dangerously twitches at his pained attempt at a million watts smile makes Derek fiddle nervously with the zipper of his jacket.

“Excuse me, Sir, I’m…”

“Loud,” Mr. Houssain says, catching one of his son’s wandering little fists in his palm and holding it firmly. “Cat-frightening, dead-raising, toddler-nap-preventing loud.”

“Erm – One of those things is rather not like the others, isn’t it?”

“Maybe not. Then again, I don’t keep corpses around to really test that theory”

The eyebrow does its eyebrow-y thing. Derek shuffles nervously.

“I’m very sorry, either way.”

The man softens a little. The eyebrow rears back, lying in wait.

“Eh.” He jerks his head a bit, pointing at the stairs with his chin. “You’re just lucky Old McEwan’s from third floor’s not home on Thursdays. He has a _throw beer can first, ask later_ approach to noise. The cans aren’t always empty. It’s not very pleasant”

Derek – who just a week ago has been at the end of what he can now safely assume was Old McEwan’s deadly aim – knows from experience it isn’t.

“Anyway,” Mr. Houssain says, “I have work to do and I just need this one to go to sleep for my sanity.”

He lifts the kid a bit higher as if Derek could’ve missed the toothy grin that spells trouble. With his head full of curls and his bright eyes, he doesn’t look sleepy in the slightest. As Derek watches, the other chubby hand starts creeping toward the ruffled beard.

The eyebrow of terror lifts again. Derek begins to be uncomfortably reminded of his mama.

“I could do with a bit of quiet,” Mr. Houssain says.

“I’ll be a mouse,” Derek swears. “Quieter, even. A fly.”

“I wouldn’t recommend. I find flies particularly irritating.”

“A ladybug, then. It’s just very important I talk to Amos.”

He flutters a hand in the direction of the other apartment on the landing.

“I was wondering if you knew why the bookstore isn’t open today.”

Mr. Hussain gives him a weird look.

“Probably because it hasn’t been open in about five years.”

The lovely secure concrete under Derek’s feet sways.

“What? No. I’ve been here last week with my friend. We –“

The kid, clearly growing bored, starts pulling at his father’s collar.

“Down,” he orders, high-pitched but imperious. “Daddy. Down.”

Mr. Houssain lets him go, pushing him in the direction of the living room with a stern command not to touch Daddy’s laptop. He turns back to Derek with a tired expression.

“Look, I really need him to go to bed before Cora comes home. All I know is that a few years back when we moved here, the guy living there used to run a second-hand bookstore from the apartment. He was a bit weird now. Talked a lot like he dined with some supernatural being every week. All _the Aztecs ate these three times a week, the Mayans preferred the dulcet tones of jungle beasts to bird songs, the world is going to end in the poorly organized chaos of an extraterrestrial party._ That sort of nonsense, right? Anyway, my wife and I, we think _He’s a bookseller, they’re all a bit odd_ so we mostly ignore him. Not going to lie to you, he had an excellent selection of books. We let a lot slide for that in this family. Then he just – ups and leaves. One day I buy an original edition of _Pomfret Towers_ from him, the next he runs out of here half-naked, yelling about the devil. Someone still pays rent, though, so unless the devil is very diligent in paying the bills, he still intends to return someday.”

“But I’ve been here last week,” Derek insists.

He rummages through his backpack, pulling out a battered copy of Addonizio’s _Tell Me_.

“I’ve bought this book, look.”

The man shrugs helplessly. His expression has turned a bit cagey like he’s not quite sure there’s that big of a difference between Derek and his old neighbor anymore. Suddenly, he looks like he can’t wait to end the conversation.

“I don’t know what to tell you, son. Maybe you just don’t have the right building, yes?”

The door closes. Derek just stands there staring, poetry book in hand, his last link to Chris vanishing before his very eyes.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was a bit blown away that that prologue's been read. Not going to lie, I didn't think that Gravity Falls had fans around here but now that I know it does
> 
> *fiddles with her glasses like a mature 21 years old* 
> 
> ISN'T IT GREAT?
> 
> Now that that's out of the way - do I like this chapter? I don't even know, I read it so many times that it makes me kind of sick at this point. Do a lot of stuff happen in it? Not really. But It's necessary for stuff to happen later. Also, am I ever going to be one of those 17K chapters people? No, because I have the self-control of a toddler.  
> With that out of the way, look what I have learned
> 
> tumblr \- ha!


	3. Mail-Shipped Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> there is a panic attack in this chapter. I understand if this is triggering for some, so be aware that's what most of the first scene is composed of and there are after-effects of it throughout the rest of the chapter. if you choose to comment, know that flowery words aside, this is based on my own experiences with panic attacks, so please be respectful

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there is a panic attack in this chapter. I understand if this is triggering for some, so be aware that's what most of the first scene is composed of and there are after-effects of it throughout the rest of the chapter. if you choose to comment, know that flowery words aside, this is based on my own experiences with panic attacks, so please be respectful

Hope is a bloodthirsty thing, Derek has come to realize. It likes to push one to despair. Hope doesn’t do ‘no violence’ policies. Hope likes you to bite. It likes to be clawed at.

 There are splinters of it stuck between Derek’s teeth, shavings shoved under his nails.

 They make him buzz in his skin. They make him unable to stop even when the bridge has crumbled right before his eyes.

He checks the handwritten pages are still snuggly placed between the cover and the title page, shoves the book back into his backpack and trudges upstairs. He knocks on two more doors, studiously avoiding the one that says McEwan.

The tenants, they’re – nice about it in their own way, even though they both look at him pityingly, and Derek has the teasing suspicion that faced with his increasing droopiness, they are trying to make him feel better. A burly man gruffly tries to con him into lending a hand with moving furniture. A sweet old lady takes one look at his shaken expression and crowds him inside with grandmotherly fussiness, makes him tea and plops her pet chihuahua in his lap.

And he won’t deny it’s all endearing in a way but having an existential crisis in someone else’s living room while their ridiculously tiny dog is growling at him from the side of his ridiculously tiny mouth seems in poor taste, so Derek excuses himself as soon as he can.

The stairs sway under his feet.

It’s hellishly hot when Derek finally leaves the building but self-preservation makes him avoid the tube. The streets may be crowded, but they’re a moving struggle, an infinite line of unknown faces constantly passing him by. The thought of the underground, where everyone seems to mash together in a breathable, inescapable mass, makes his skin crawl. He can’t stand it, the idea of being scrutinized by the same furtive glances for too long.

There are five blocks between the bookstore and his place and Derek walks them like a man in a trance, with the blood pounding in his ears and the events of the past hour crackling under his skin like electricity. The world becomes hazy around the edges. His thoughts seem to be eluding him, his mind racing at a pace he simply cannot match, replaying everything on a loop.

 _No_ , he hears again and again, _the bookstore’s closed down years ago,_ and the hot air burns his lungs, his shoulders tremble like they’re tired of sustaining him.  

By the time he passes the coffee place on the corner of his street, he feels too big for his own body and a concoction of guilt and sadness sways dangerously inside him, threatening to spill everywhere. There’s wetness gathering on his cheeks.

The panic swells and swells, unfurling in his stomach, clawing up his neck. Foggy. Everything swims before his eyes, undulating in out of shape. He makes it by the skin of his teeth.

It’s still a while to go until dinner when Derek lets himself inside the apartment and the house is quiet. Blessedly empty.  He slams the door shut then slides down against it, tucking his knees under his chin. He closes his eyes tightly, imagines the thin walls keeping the world outside curving around his troubled form like a protective shell.

Energy buzzes through him and he’s scattered everywhere – everywhere – there’s a particle of him in every corner of the room and he wants – he wants –

He thinks the comfort he craves might shatter him.

Derek can hardly breathe.

 

* * *

 

 

It takes him a long while to gather himself. He’s still shaky on his feet, but Derek digs up his favorite blanket from storage – the fleecy one he used to take with him to Andover every autumn that’s well on its way to raggedy by now – and he sets the AC to the highest level and he makes himself a nest in his bed.

He just exists for a bit.

The green on the walls soothes him a little. The room’s clutter helps him breathe. The silence lulls him. Derek closes his eyes, counts his heartbeats. Waits. He adjusts slowly, the feeling he’s just watching catastrophe wrap around someone else starting to pour lazily out of him. He takes a bit of control back.

And then he gets to work.

Derek has never been a good online stalker. There’s just something inherently creepy about piecing together someone’s existence without their permission. It’s easy, at the tip of anyone’s fingers, and to think about it too deeply renders the entire thing supremely uncomfortable.

Yet, before it’d occurred to him Amos might know who’d owned the book before, it’s all he’d done for the last three days. Ever since he’d had the sinking realization no one but him remembered Chris.

He has a routine by now and, cocooned in his blanket, with his laptop balancing precariously on his knees, he runs through it all again. Facebook. Instagram. Email. Even the Sharks’ promotional page, where Chris’ photos from his time as a Little Shark used to still pop up here and there.

But, just like all the other times before, there’s no trace of Christopher Chow online. All Derek has to trust is his own mind.

A thin string, truly, for his sanity to dangle on.

 

* * *

 

 

He ends up dozing off a bit. The next thing he knows is a quick set of raps on his door, followed by his Mama sticking her head into the room, worried frown in place. Derek waves her in sleepily and she tip-toes to the bed, wrapping the ends of her cardigan more tightly around her.

She shivers like a leaf.

Derek lifts a corner of his blanket in invitation and she wastes no time sliding in. For a long moment, they just sit in silence, curled on their sides, staring at each other. Derek remembers many such occurrences from his childhood. Unsurprisingly, this seems heavier. Suffocating.

“Bad day?” Mama finally asks, tucking the blanket more firmly around his neck and then cupping his cheek in her hand.

It feels like a punch, her simple touch. Derek struggles to blink back tears.

There’s a part of him – one that Derek doubts will ever truly go away – that longs to bury his face in the nook between her neck and shoulder and inhale her in like oxygen. It’s a good place, that nook, a hideout of sorts where all his childhood worries, all his fears had eventually gone to rest. A magic place. An innocent solution.

He wants that now. The unconditional affection. The reassurance. The coddling. He swallows heavily.

“What gave me away?” he asks.

“It feels like winter in Alaska out there.” She rubs her thumb gently against his skin. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He could. He could say – Say what? He has nothing believable to share. Derek shakes his head and shifts closer almost unwillingly. Her hand worms its way under the blanket, come to rest easily on his back, and Derek breathes a little easier.

 

* * *

 

 

Will has two more coffees while he waits tucked away in his corner booth, knees up on the table’s edge, wide open eyes fixated on the ceiling. They seem to buzz under his skin, mixing with the particular brand of exhaustion only constantly fitful, uncomfortable sleep can render. His body feels heavy like lead. His mind, however, has taken the caffeine boost and qualmlessly ran with it, leaving behind a state of agitated alertness that makes Will aware beyond belief of everything around.

He cannot seem to stop moving.

His knee keeps jiggling, sending the table into a constant rattling motion. His fiddling hands itch for something to toy with.

“I never quite realized what an anxiety-inducing sight a restless, phoneless man is.” Caitlin plops down next to him, pressing a firm palm on his knee. “Stop that. People are starting to stare.”

“Sorry,” Will mumbles, half turning to meet her gaze. He forces his knee to still. “Just antsy.”

He glances around. The diner has emptied a tad but a booth of old ladies still steal looks at him over the edge of their menus.

“They’ve been staring all this time, anyway.”

Caitlin looks awfully unimpressed. “Sure they have, buddy. Scruffy teenager appears out of nowhere looking dead-on-his-feet tired? Prime small-town gossip material. So many questions. So few answers. You’re a God-sent to these people. They’ll adore you as long as you don’t murder anyone and stop that godforsaken rattle.”

“Seems like a pretty low bar.”

Caitlin digs the heel of her palm into the meat of his tight. “And yet you’re having problems meeting half of it.”

A slow flush colors his cheeks; Will shifts to straighten in the seat but his converse-clad foot still keeps a soft tap-tapping against the floor.

Caitlin sighs.

“I’m never giving you coffee ever again,” she says, getting up and snatching the empty cup from his lax hold. “My shift ends in a few and then we’ll go, okay? Eric should be home soon.” She gives him a conspiratorial wink. “He’s very excited by the prospect of getting Betsy back.”

Will watches her disappear into the kitchen, longingly staring after his refillable coffee cup. He wonders who Betsy is. It occurs to him she might be talking about to the oven but dismisses that with a snort. Naming their appliances can’t truly be something people do. 

Can it?

 

* * *

 

 

The sky’ reddened a little by the time Will leaves Annie’s. It’s a bit past seven already but Farmer, whose apron has been unceremoniously thrust at the evening shift girl as soon as she’s set foot in the place, insists Eric won’t mind.

“It’s not like he can get it fixed any other time, really. He’s always at the bakery until around 6:30.”

They walk down the street, Will pulling restlessly at a loose thread of his shirt. Caitlin stops at the first corner, makes a vague gesture to the left and then leans close to him, like she’s sharing a secret. She even takes a few seconds to look both ways, face twisted in suspicion.

“I will preface this by saying I have full confidence in your abilities.”

“You shouldn’t,” Will says. “We really don’t know each other.”

She clucks impatiently. It’s a cluck Will knows well. It spells ‘I talk, you listen’. “Whatever you do,” she whispers, “don’t tell him the oven it’s unsalvageable.”

“Is that,” Will shuffles, a bit uncomfortable, “is that a strong possibility?”

 Caitlin snorts. “Finklemaier? The one with the repair shop? He took one look at the thing and offered to buy it for scraps. Now the entire family is banned from pie consumption. We can’t even sell a slice to the kiddies. They lean against the counter with that sad little face and – It’s really very sad.”

“That – sounds a bit harsh?”

Will thinks that sounds a bit bonkers but he’s not going to say that out loud. Caitlin just nods, determined.

“Which is why you’ll avoid the same faith. Look at the thing, keep your unfavorable opinions to yourself, say ‘I’m afraid is beyond my capabilities’ and you’re golden. He’ll love you forever.”

Will cocks his head, amused.

“Are you telling me to deceive your friend, Caitlin?”

She pokes him in the chest with a finger. “I’m telling you he makes damn good pie, William. Lie your ass off in its name like a man.”

 She gives him some vague directions before shoving him unceremoniously to the right. “This town could fit in a teaspoon, dude. You really can’t get lost. By which I mean, I’m going to take the piss out of you forever if you do.”

When Will arrive at the apartment buildings – three lefts and a long trudge along a stone wall later – he realizes why no further instructions were needed. For a start, there are only two of them and they can only boast about three floors each. Underneath the dirty grayish color they’re painted,  an intricate web of tiny fissures advertizes they’ve seen better days.

He’s supposed to pick the one that’s worse for the wear, which turns out to be a bit of a challenge. They both put up fierce competition but, in the end, Will has to give it to the one with the half-ripped pipe. It’s just too nice of a touch to ignore.

In the entry hall, the light bulb flickers in and out irregularly, filling the room with a monotonous fizzling sound. The stairs look about as tired as Will feels.

There are three doors on the second floor. Will knows which one he’s looking for – it’s been described to him in terms like cherry wood, well-maintained, has a bulb that actually works. Even the sign is there, the little blackboard with _Pastry Chef in Training_ curlicued on it.

Yet, nothing is at it should be. A cold shiver glides down Will’s spine.

There’s no warm, buttery light. No perfectly polished wood. No golden-chained bell hanging next to the door. The light is smashed. The sign is in pieces. The door frame’s in splinters and the entrance is gaping like an open mouth. When Will looks down, there’s a round knob close to his shoe tip.

Will’s heartbeat skyrockets, making an echo chamber of his thoughts. From inside the apartment, almost drowned out by his panic, a shuffling sound makes its way, hinting whatever’s happened in there, it’s yet to be over.

 

* * *

 

 

 _Cold,_ is Derek’s first thought.

Then _Why?_

The blanket, he registers belatedly. The blanket is missing and they haven’t actually got around to turning off the AC before falling asleep. The result is a sudden blossoming of cold pinpricks all over his skin and Derek barely resists the urge to curl up in a ball in desperate search of heat. 

He shifts up on his elbows, blinking blearily. His head protests the move – his temples pulse softly, but painfully; his nose feels stuffy from crying. The room sways lazily. It greatly resembles a hangover of sorts, less alcoholic, heavily emotional, highly unpalatable. Derek is not a fan.

To his right, Mama’s huddled form uncurls with a groan and she rolls over heavily, burying her face in a different pillow. Derek instantly misses the searing heat of her palm resting between his shoulder blades. 

“Is it who I think it is?” she asks.

Derek cranes his neck over his shoulder and squints sandy-eyed at the backlit silhouette of his Mom. The room has gently darkened during their nap, so all he can really see is a short, curvy, wild-haired figure with a square of what could plausibly be a well-worn fleecy blanket folded neatly over one arm. It stands very still.

“It definitely is,” he confirms. Talking proves to be hard. His voice is croaky. His throat feels swollen. “Has our blanket, too.”

Mama hums, mouth full of pillowcase. “Tell her I want a divorce.”

Derek rolls over, props himself against the headboard with a groan. He’s too lazy to reach for his glasses so he does another half-blind squint at the figure. No. He hasn’t been wrong the first time around - she simply radiates smugness. Derek’s not going there. He digs his left foot into Mama’s calf.

“She’s your wife. You tell her.”

“Coward,” Mama accuses, still not resurfacing.

“Cautious,” Derek corrects.

“Casually rooting for his parents to stay together,” Mom throws in her two cents. 

Mama finally straightens, aiming the full power of her charm behind a toothy, sleepy smile.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about, hon. I was just saying how much I miss you.”

 There are several red pillow-indents on her cheek and her fringe sticks everywhere. Derek can see the corner of Mom’s mouth twitching fleetingly quick.

“You have dried drool on your chin,” she says, unfolding the blanket and spreading it over their legs. Mama wipes it off with a dismayed frown and gets a pacifying pat on the calf for her effort before Mom circles the bed to perch herself next to Derek. He can’t help but lean into the touch when her rough hand pushes his curls off his forehead.  She leans in to press a heavy kiss to his overheated skin.

“How you feeling, love?”

Seven years old Derek had once dubbed the expression she’s wearing now as her ‘serious face’. Nineteen years old Derek still uses that as a compass. It’s her ‘we don’t hide in this house’ face. Her ‘weigh your words face’. Her ‘I am here’ face.

So Derek takes his time. He mulls it over, the tightening of his chest. Heart-sick is most of the answer. Confused, partially. Terribly overwhelmed. Still, he finds, hopeful again. Just a smidge. The tiniest smudge of hope thinly spread all over the swirl of emotion inside. Just enough of it, he thinks.

“A bit better,” is what he says. He’s relieved to find out it’s not a lie.

She searches his face for a moment longer. “Better enough to eat something? You should.” She rubs her thumb back and forth over his chapped lips. “Drink, too.” 

“We could order in if you want something special,” Mama adds.

It warms him, the care. It makes the smile stretching his lips more honest.

“Anything’s fine,” Derek says but Mom’s already mumbling something about stir-fry and rushing out of the room. 

They eat in the living room, cross-legged at the coffee table, Mama dishing things out of containers while Mom sorts through the content of the mailbox. She thrusts a stack of letters at Mama who takes them with a good-natured eye-roll.

“How come the bills are all your loving wife gets is what I’d like to know.”

“Don’t sell yourself short, dear.” Mom sets a few brown envelopes aside.” You also get a call from my lawyer. Divorces don’t just happen out of the blue.”

Derek’s just opening his fried rice container when she passes him the card.

“I didn’t know you people still used this stuff.”

Derek looks down at the postcard. It’s an overview of a lakeside town, sleepy and domestic, completely unremarkable. He flips it over. There’s no information about the sender, but, above his address, the words Gravity Falls, Oregon, stare him in the face.

To the left, the unmistakable shape of a shark seems to swim in and out of his shaky contour.

Derek inhales sharply. His heart starts running, ten miles per hour, a hundred, a thousand. It runs, and runs, and runs. It doesn’t settle and hope rises up his throat, threatening to choke him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I die? No
> 
> Did I not update because I could not, for the life of me, write Nursey's part? Yes.
> 
> Am I happy with how it turned out? Not 100% but I can't slog on this chapter anymore or I'll go nuts.
> 
> *side note - I have, in the last two weeks oscillated between 'kudos are great' and 'kudos are the worst' at least a few times a day. they're a nice boost of confidence but well - "
> 
> I'm not even going to bother with the tumblr. one of you very nicely explained to me how to do it but I don't have the patience for it now. maybe later. it's sour-cherry-on-simon. do with that what you will.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys enjoyed this little snippet. ^_^
> 
> This is the moment where I would very much like to link my tumblr.I have exactly zero idea how. It's sour-cherry-on-simon


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